In conventional program reserving methods and program reservation systems, recording or reproduction is reserved using programming information transmitted by broadcasting.
Programming information is information composed of a plurality of program information. The program information is information relating to each program, and includes at least a broadcasting station and a broadcasting date. The program information may, in some cases, include information used for a user selecting or retrieving a program in addition thereto. Examples of the information include the title of the program, the genre of the program, a descriptive text of the program, performers, and link information to related information. A display window for an EPG (Electric Program Guide) can be configured by displaying the programming information on a screen. The programming information may, in some cases, be referred to as EPG data. Furthermore, programming information until after a predetermined time period, for example, eight days from today is transmitted. A user can display a program listing until after a predetermined time period. The user can select a program which he/she wants to view from the program listing and register a reservation of the program. This allows the program whose reservation has been registered to be recorded on a recording appliance.
Program information includes a date on which a program is broadcast, a broadcasting station at which the program is broadcast, a program identifier for identifying the program, and the title of the program, for example.
The program identifier has a value unique to programming information transmitted at least a certain time. If the program identifier is designated, program information relating to the program can be referred to by referring to the programming information at that time point. The program identifier is “event_id” prescribed in ARIB (Association of Radio Industries and Businesses) STD-B10 that is a digital broadcasting standard in Japan, for example. Since “event_id” is stored in a 16-bit field, a maximum of 65536 programs per broadcasting station can be distinguished by “event_id”. Since a range of value that can be taken by “event_id” is finite, a value that can be used once is utilized again after a sufficient time period. Furthermore, “event_id” is automatically assigned to the program by a broadcasting transmission system at the broadcasting station. For example, a finally assigned value plus one is assigned to the subsequent program.
Description is herein made of a normal reservation operation performed in a program reservation system including a receiving device and a recording device.
The receiving device stores programming information. First, a user instructs the receiving device to display a program listing. Thus, the receiving device displays the program listing on the basis of the stored programming information.
Then, the user selects a program which he/she wants to reserve from the program listing. The receiving device generates information relating to a date on which and a broadcasting station at which the selected program starts to be broadcast as a reservation entry. Furthermore, the receiving device generates a reservation instruction corresponding to the reservation entry, and transmits the reservation instruction to the recording device.
Then, the recording device stores, when it receives the reservation instruction from the receiving device, information included in the reservation instruction as a reservation entry. The reservation entry includes a broadcasting date on which and a broadcasting station at which the program is broadcast. The recording device receives the program broadcast at the broadcasting station included in the reservation entry while starting a recording operation on the broadcasting date included in the reservation entry. This causes a reservation to be executed.
Patent Document 1 discloses a method of reserving future programs after a predetermined time period during which programming information is transmitted. Patent Document 1 assumes that enlarged program information relating to the future program after the predetermined time period is transmitted in addition to the programming information. The extended program information includes an enlarged program identifier for identifying the program.
In this case, in a broadcasting station system, information for establishing a one-to-one correspondence between an extended program identifier and a program identifier at the time point where the program identifier is defined is generated as mapping information and broadcast.
Patent Document 2 discloses an example in which a broadcasting date on which a program is broadcast is undefined at the time point where extended program information is transmitted.    [Patent Document 1] WO 2005/117422 pamphlet    [Patent Document 2] JP 2005-328218 A